Insurance in the Asia-Pacific region faces its own set of business challenges, and insurance technology has evolved along a distinctive path. In a new report, Model Insurer Asia 2011: Case Studies of Effective Technology Use in Insurance, Celent recognizes 18 insurance technology initiatives as model insurer components.

These best practices in the use of technology span key areas of the product and policyholder lifecycle, including product definition, distribution, underwriting, policy administration, service, claims, and infrastructure. The report also reviews IT best practices and measurable business results used in evaluating the model insurer components.

"Effective use of technology is more important than pursuit of technology for its own sake," says Wenli Yuan, senior analyst with Celent's Asian financial services group and author of the report. "This is the common thread among every selected model insurer component, and the decision each insurer should be proud of."

In this report, Celent offers some key best practices in the use of technology across various areas of the industry—whether in components of the product and policyholder lifecycle or general areas such as IT infrastructure and management—that a "model insurer" would use. These areas are illustrated by case studies of specific initiatives and capabilities, selected from the many submissions and presented in this report as model insurer components.

Model Insurer Asia Components 2011

Apollo Munich Health Insurance: Implementing a workflow-enabled system that supports straight-through processing of the whole health product lifecycle with integration to all back end systems.
Aviva-COFCO Life Insurance: Implementing cloud computing technology to reduce cost and improve flexibility.
AXA China Region Insurance: Implementing a Web-based technology solution to enhance sales services and distribution capability and speed up product rollout.
China Pacific Insurance (Group): Implementing a centralized call center system across China to support life and P&C business needs.
China Pacific Life Insurance: Rationalizing, standardizing, and integrating systems to enable a centralized, stable, reliable, and efficient technical platform.
ClearView Wealth: Implementing a Web-based technology solution to enable the direct mail distribution channel, via call center follow-up, to underwrite and issue policies without the need for external or manual intervention.
Generali China Life Insurance: Implementing an integrated technology platform with a single sign-on to multiple systems.
ICICI Prudential Life Insurance: Introducing a Web-based system to process selected classes of health claims.
IndiaFirst Life Insurance: Investing in simple, cost-efficient, scalable, and proven IT systems to reduce costs and improve time to market.
Insurance House Group: Implementing an all-in-one solution for the online direct and intermediated markets in Australia.
Nextia Life Insurance Co., Ltd.: Implementing a real-time Web-based policy application system including automatic underwriting and payment processing.
PICC Health Insurance: Implementing a social medical insurance connection platform to enhance automated claim processing and improve claim risk management.
Real Insurance: Implementing social media as a channel to build relationships with customers and use the results of this interaction to drive new strategies.
Reliance General Insurance: Implementing a motor insurance pre-inspection system using mobile technology linked to in-house systems, streamlining the underwriting of new business.
Royal Sundaram Alliance Insurance: Implementing a workflow-enabled policy administration system with externalized engines to support product configuration and business rules.
Transport Accident Commission: Transforming the claims management process to a new recovery model with primary goals to improve return to work rates and durations, better manage common law claims, and improve client satisfaction.
Wesfarmers General Insurance: Implementing a multiproduct, multichannel model servicing the entire policy lifecycle.
Five insurers initiated a project for compulsory automobile liability insurance to improve service efficiency. They included Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance; Sompo Japan Insurance; Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance; Aioi Nissay Dowa Insurance; and Nipponkoa Insurance Company

"This year marks the first time Celent has applied our globally recognized Model Insurer methodology to honor technology initiatives in Asia," said Neil Katkov, senior vice president, Asia for Celent. "We received a broad range of submissions, so we are confident the winning initiatives represent the state-of-the-art in insurance technology in the region."

Nominations for model insurer components were accepted beginning in June 2010, and the Celent insurance team selected the 18 winning initiatives based on the business benefits provided. Each model insurer component is described in a brief write-up within the report, including detailed descriptions of business drivers, technology environments, and quantitative success metrics.

Special Reports /

Celent Cites Effective Use of Technology Among Asian Insurers

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